GAINING & LOSING WEIGHT

RealJock.com Healthy Weight-Loss Program Overview

Are you ready to shed unwanted weight the right way, by eating a super healthy and well-balanced diet? Then welcome to the RealJock.com Healthy Weight-Loss Program. The program was created by expert nutritionist Manuel Villacorta, MS, RD, CSSD, considered one of the leading nutritionists in the San Francisco Bay Area. Villacorta's practice has helped hundreds of athletes and everyday people achieve their target weight and improve their performance through healthy eating. To get started with the program, please read this overview in its entirety.

STEP ONE: CHOOSE YOUR MEAL PLAN
Every person is different and has different resting metabolic rates, different lifestyles and exercise plans with diverse levels of intensity. However, to make your weight loss a bit simpler, Villacorta has developed two meal plan samples. The caloric level of these meal plan samples were written by using baseline numbers that would be provided for an average male with an average lifestyle and average expenditures through exercise for weight loss. You'll adjust the plans later based on your personal lifestyle and exercise regimen. To get started, first choose the meal plan below that best describes your body type.

1800-Calorie Regular Meal Plan
Villacorta developed this plan for the average male age 20 to 60 year old, height ranging from 5’ 4” to 5’ 10”, weighing 180 to 260 pounds, with a sedentary or light activity desk job. This plan assumes the user exercises four to five days per week doing a combination of cardiovascular exercises (two to three hours per week) and strength training (three to four hours per week). The 1800 calorie meal plan has a macronutrient distribution of 45 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent protein and 25 percent fat. This meal plan provides 199 grams of carbohydrates, 142 grams of protein and 50 grams of fat.

2100-Calorie Regular Meal Plan
Villacorta developed this plan for the average male age 20 to 60 year old, height ranging from 5’ 11” to 6’ 3”, weighing 190 to 350 pounds, with a sedentary or light activity desk job. This plan assumes the user exercises four to five days per week doing a combination of cardiovascular exercises (two to three hours per week and strength training (three to four hours per week). The 2100 calorie meal plan has a macronutrient distribution of 45 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent protein and 25 percent fat. This meal plan will provide you with 231 grams of carbohydrates, 162 grams of protein and 58 grams of fat.

STEP TWO: TAILOR THE PROGRAM TO YOUR INDIVIDUAL NEEDS
A good weight-loss plan will take into consideration three important components that determine your caloric expenditures or your total energy expenditure (TEE):

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): Your RMR represents the calories the body burns to maintain vital body functions such as heart rate, brain function, and breathing. In simple terms, it is the number of calories a person would burn if he or she were awake, but at rest all day.

Lifestyle (LS): Your LS is the amount of activities you do during the day while awake. According to the activity level you perform during a day at work, your calories burned will vary. Even a sedentary person that sits in front of a computer for most of the day will burn a small number of calories.

Exercise (E): Your E is the amount of physical exercise you do during the day while awake. Lifting weights at the gym, cardiovascular workouts, and engaging in active sports are all components of your exercise expenditure.

The total energy expenditure (TEE) equation is shown below:

TEE = RMR + LS + E

Your TEE is the amount of calories you burn in one day. So if you eat the same number of calories as your TEE, you will maintain your weight. If you eat more than your TEE, you will gain weight, and if you eat less than your TEE, you will lose weight. Studies have shown that for every deficit of 500-calories per day or 3,500 calories per week, you will lose one pound of weight per week.

You should calculate your own TEE to better understand your caloric needs. For example, if you engage in endurance running and run seven miles per day on average, your TEE will likely be higher and you will need to increase your daily caloric intake significantly to ensure you meet your body's nutritional needs. Conversely, if you rarely exercise, you will have a lower TEE and will likely need to reduce your daily caloric intake to lose weight.

STEP THREE: LEARN HOW MACRONUTRIENT DISTRIBUTION WORKS
For the RealJock.com Healthy Weight-Loss Program, you will eat healthy foods from three main food groups:

Carbohydrates: This group includes grains and starches (G&S), fruits, non-starchy vegetables (NSV), and milk or soy that includes non-fat milk and 1% milk (NFM) that contain a significant amount of carbohydrates.

Proteins: This group consists of meats and vegetarian meats, including very lean meats (VLM) and lean meats (LM).

Fats: This group includes foods that contain a significant amount of healthy fats, including vegetable oils such as olive and canola oil, nuts, olives, and avocados.

The RealJock.com Healthy Weight-Loss program is not a calorie counting plan. Instead, your meal plans are based on a macronutrient distribution—a percent distribution of calories from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Villacorta has translated this distribution to the number of servings allowed per food group, which will help you more easily control your serving sizes.

For example, the meal plan assigns you five allowances of G&S according to your meal plan. So if you ate one cup of oatmeal at breakfast (1/2 cup is one serving, thus you have eaten two allowances of G&S), then you would have three allowances left of G&S to eat later in the day.

Your serving sizes will be determined according to their macronutrient composition amounts of carbohydrate, protein, and fat. Each serving size within each food group contains about the same amount of carbohydrate, protein, fat, and calories, respectively. Since the serving sizes within each food group provide the same amounts of macronutrients and calories, you have many food choices to eat from and you can trade within each food group so you don’t have to always keep eating the same foods. For example, on Monday you could eat a cup and half of cereal, which will counts as two G&S, but on Tuesday you may decide not to have cereal, so you will trade your two G&S of cereal for two slices of whole toast. You decide what to eat from each food group as long as you keep the serving sizes and allowances in check.

Your serving size allowances should be distributed throughout the day. Contrary to what the diet books tell you, there is not one right way to do it, so feel free to modify the plan to accommodate your schedule. That said, Villacorta recommends you combine all or most of the food groups for your bigger meals, and at least two food groups for you snacks.

High Fiber: whole grains with good fiber sources that contain more than three grams of fiber per serving. Foods that contain greater than five grams of dietary fiber per serving are considered an excellent source of fiber.

Low Fat: Low-fat means less than three grams of fat per serving.

Reduced fat: Reduced fat is not low fat. Reduced fat means at least 25 percent less fat per serving than the original food.

Fat Free: Foods are considered fat free if they contain less than 0.5 grams per serving.

Very Lean or Lean Meats: This group includes any type of meat beef, poultry, pork, fish, and cheeses containing zero to three grams of fat per ounce in weight (4 percent or 5 percent of fat, or 95 percent to 99 percent fat free).

STEP SIX: START THE REALJOCK.COM HEALTHY WEIGHT-LOSS PROGRAM
Once you have chosen your meal plan based on your body size and learned how the program works, you're ready to get started. Each program consists of seven days of eating plans, including your daily food group allowances broken out by meal, plus a sample meal and sample ingredients within that meal.

All of the meals in the programs are just suggestions. Feel free to replace one strawberries with blueberries, for example; just don't add extra ingredients like butter and corn syrup. What's important is that you eat your distribution of healthy carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, sticking within the allotted allowances. Below you'll find an overview of each meal plan and the number of food groups and allowances you are allowed per day.